The Unassuming Economist

From a new VOX post:

“Children in the upper-middle part of the conditional distribution show the smallest degree of intergenerational persistence, while top incomes and, especially, low incomes are very much conditioned by parental income. Interestingly, previous studies did not find an increase of IGE in the US from the 70^th percentile onwards. Apart from the much bigger sample under consideration in our work, the observed difference is most likely due to the variable used – i.e. household income (instead of earnings) – which includes capital income, through which a great deal of the correlation between parental and children incomes in the upper part of the distribution occurs.”